Nationalization

A controversial new farms policy has led to a political clampdown in a remote lowland region of Ethiopia. The government of Meles Zenawi is pioneering the lease of some three million hectares of land over the next five years, an area the size of Belgium. The policy is targeting massive lowland areas mostly in the west and south-west of the country. These are regions populated by smaller minority ethnic groups. The government denies conducting any repression, and says instead that its policy is aimed at lifting local people out of poverty. Foreign investors in Gambella include Chinese, Indian and Saudi firms. The Saudis alone say they are hoping to produce as much as a million tonnes of rice per year, most of it for their own domestic market. Read more (BBC, 16.12.2001)

State projects between neoliberal restauration and ‘postneoliberalism’
(ppg-network and RLS in cooperation with the University of Vienna and Historical Materialism) at Historical Materialism in London, 27.-29.11.09, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Thornhaugh Street, London WC1H OXG.

Doug Henwood delivered ”Nationalize the Banks! What Does it Really Mean?,” on a panel organized by the Socialist Register, at the Left Forum, New York City, April 19, 2009:

“The title of our session reminds me of that glorious week in Seattle back in December 1999. At that time, and for a little while afterwards, it seemed like a new movement had been born, and there was some real potential for transforming, or even overthrowing, capitalism. One of my favorite chants of that moment of carnival came from the unfairly maligned Black Bloc: “Capitalism? No thanks! We will burn your fucking banks!” Not constructive, perhaps, but inspiring nonetheless.”